Reseach – SUSTAINABILITY – Transitioning Melbourne by Peter Newton

“SUSTAINABILITY – Transitioning Melbourne” by Peter Newton at the Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology was posted on Australian Policy Online , 14-05-2008. Please find a brief abstract of the article below.

“MELBOURNEs transition to an eco-city needs to occur within two generations â€“ by around 2050. The reasons for this are pressing. The need for a secure water supply that is eco-efficient. The need to reduce fossil-fuel-based energy use by at least 60 per cent from current levels to help mitigate global warming and avoid irreversible climate change. The need to have consigned the petroleum-driven automobile to history to help avoid a crisis of mobility for three-quarters of Melbournes population in a post-peak-oil world. The need to be well advanced in regenerating Melbournes existing suburbs, thereby constraining urban sprawl which currently threatens to blight the citys tourism corridors, remove irreplaceable local agricultural land from production and further damage the citys bioregion. These key vulnerabilities can be linked to the impacts of unsustainable consumption and production and the continued application of an urban planning paradigm stuck in the last century.”